Barret takes the opportunity to investigate.
Barret carefully heads towards the only door out. "Be wary. The spirits may not be content with shutting doors."
When the door closes shutting them away in darkness Raphael casts a quick spell and with a snap of his fingers four glowing balls of light appear illuminating the room.
Gur keeps his axe at the ready and soldiers onward alongside his new found compatriots.
Barret also feels the spot of cold in front of the iron bars, and immediately steps back out of it. It seems to only be a small radius of about fifteen feet in front of the bars. When out of the radius, it doesn't seem as if the feeling follows whomever entered into the area.
"Spirit! Show yourself!" Barret demands as he steps back in front of the bars.
Alas, no response. The area of biting cold is definitely localized around the front of the bars and seems to not be moving.
"Seems pointless, guess we should keep moving." Gur opens the door to the next room and heads through if nothing stops him.
Gur leads the way through the East door and into an equally large room. The northeast wall of this room has partially fallen, revealing the dark, murky waters of the pond outside. Moldering training dummies and other similar equipment hint that this room may have once been a training area for the guards. In the northeast part of the room, the floor around a dark, jagged hole is surrounded by black scorch marks.
Barret will examine the scorched marked part of the floor and the jagged hole.
As Barret nears the area around the hole, the small piles of rubble about its lip shift, then rotten wood, dust, and ash tumble to the side as four hideous, disembodied heads float into the air. The heads turn towards Barret, in unison, and as one burst into yellow and orange flame. The rotten heads, mostly scoured or flesh, open wide bony mouths in loud shrieks as they plunge forward to attack!
Livana’s lips curled in repulsion as the disembodied heads appeared before her. At first a chilly tingle of dread tricked down her spine, but then it happened. She began to laugh. Not a quiet chuckle but deep laughter that bubbles straight from the gut. Something about the absurdity of flaming heads got to her. Of all the dreadful opponents she anticipated to fight in her life time, bobbing, angry heads was the last she expected. She tried to contain herself and focus her crossbow at their faces. She wasn’t sure if something broke in her or if years of tracking monsters has finally warped her in some way. She looked over at Raphael and gave him a smile, “they seem a bit hot headed about our presence”
With that she presses the trigger on her crossbow sending a bolt at the head closest to her.
Raphael smirks at his wife’s joke. ”Yes I suppose no one told them that’s no way to get a ‘head’ in life.“ He chuckles as he makes a quick arcane motion and a bright ray of positive energy flys out at the heads followed quickly by an arrow fired with entering accuracy.
Livana's crossbow bolt misses one of the heads as it darts about swiftly through the air. Raphael's arrow, however, does not miss, and punches through the eye of one of the skulls, forcing it into an errant spin that lands it on the floor where its flames begin to eat away at flesh that now is not protected by a shield of supernatural power.
Raphael then targets another of the things with a ray of power, and strikes a glancing blow that is powerful nonetheless. Another head falls to the ground, where it smolders.
The two remaining heads both fly swiftly at Barret, who had led the charge into the room. They attempt to slam into him with their "bodies."
The first head strikes a glancing blow, but its flames flow across Barret's skin. The second head flies harmlessly by.
It is good that the others can maintain such high spirits in the face of... oh no. She has been infected with puns as well.
Grimacing, Lor-Sinn swings her hammer two-handed in an horizontal arc aimed at the head that flew past Barret.
Barret growls as he is hit and his skin is burned. He roars as he punches the head that struck him.
"Guess the haunts can hurt." Gur finally gets a chance to spring in to action, large axe swinging to the ready with an ease of long practice.
+1 vs undead.
Raphael is able to identify the heads as undead, and of course on fire through some means - supernatural most likely, though the flames cause very real damage, as Barret can confirm. These are likely some creation of whatever haunts this dark place - undead creatures raised from disembodied heads and imbued with unnatural powers.
Lor-Sinn interrupts Raphael's musings, as her hammer smashes one of the heads to a misshapen lump of decayed meat and dusty scorched bone. It falls to the floor with a dry, crackling sound.
Barret punches at the head, knocking it back with a strike so quick that it doesn't even scorch the skin. As soon as he does, the axe of Gur swipes down, cleaving the head neatly in two.
Barret lets out a grunt as the last one falls. "The spirits here need to put to rest."
You set out from the room with the hole, headed back to the west, then south and around to the door that runs parallel to the door from which you'd come. The door to this room is metal, and remains quite sound, in addition to being locked.
Barret grunts when he realizes the door won't open and goes to the opposite side of the room to open the other door.
"Perhaps we will find a key to this door somewhere else in this building." Lor-Sinn muses before also moving to the opposite end of the room where another door is located.
You enter through this door, and into a room that has seen better days. A huge stone furnace dominates this room, large enough for a child to climb inside. An ancient fire has burned away the entire east wall of the room, providing a panoramic, if eerie, view of the lake beyond. That same lake has gradually expanded into the room, flooding its eastern half.
Barret wanders through and opens the next door.
Lor-Sinn examines the room before moving on, checking the stone furnace in particular.
Lor-Sinn walks into the room directly after Barret, her senses tuned to her surroundings. Nearly immediately, she notices a fairly potent aura of evil surrounding the large furnace itself. She immediately calls attention to it, and with good cause, for as everyone turns to look, the face of the furnace begins to animate, as the rising scent of burning flesh floods the room.
Lor-Sinn squares up to the creature, her lucerne hammer ready to swing if it comes threateningly close.
Though Raphael and Lor-Sinn both have a suspicion that this is some haunted thing come to exact vengeance upon the living, it could be just the nature of the prison itself wearing on their nerves. They can tell little more, as the front of the old, seemingly unused furnace twists into a horrible, rage-filled visage.
"We going to make it stop making faces?"
”I think it’s just a simple haunt. It should be harmless....maybe...“ Raphael says somewhat less than reassuringly.
"Let us stay away from it then and continue our search." Lor-Sinn gives the furnace another wary look as she moves out of the room.
As Barret crosses the room, the furnace seems to grow more agitated, if possible for a device made of old iron and seemingly held together by soot. It shakes and grumbles, and then a long tongue of fire lashes out at Barret in an attempt to roast the skin off of his bones.
The flames tear through skin, burning and boiling as Barret's insides get hotter and hotter.
Barret roars in pain as he is burned on the inside. He roars in pain as his skin shifts itself. Dark brown fur grows atop his skin, his fingernails turn into claws. He is no longer human, but now a very angry bear! He lashes out with tooth and nail at the furnace.
"Harmless must not mean what I think it means." Gur growls as he hefts his axe and charges the furnace.
Lor-Sinn whirls around at the whoosh of flames and Barret's roar. She bounds towards the furnace, hammer swinging.
Barret, acting first in spite of the damage done to him, jumps in to attack the furnace. His claws screech down the metal surface, emitting a horrible sound. They seem to have no real effect, though, or the furnace just doesn't show any pain.
Puzzled by the lack of effect, Lor-Sinn attempts to recall what she knows of haunts. Perhaps another method was needed here.
Though Lor-Sinn can't recall much about haunts, she does remember that many are very specific about what can harm them, and often physical damage will do nothing. The energy of priestly devotions, though...often that can hurt them.
”I’d like to point out I said maybe harmless.“ Raphael says annoyingly calm as he casts disrupt undead hoping that the furnace was powered by a restless spirit.
Gur, realizing he is useless in this fight, backpedals out.
Raphael's strike seems to move over the "body" of the furnace like an electrical current, the positive energy dancing over the surface, hitting every joint. The thing seems to diminish slightly, though it shows no outward sign of pain. It's fire seems to dim.
There was nothing she could do against the thing, so Lor-Sinn backs away towards the room's exit, on the lookout for new dangers.
Livana realizing there was little she could do in this fight covers Raphael in case anything else shows up.
Seeing that his spell did something at least Raphael casts it once again.
Raphael once again lances forth a ray of energy at the furnace, and again the fires dim. The furnace seems to be losing energy with the attacks, but has enough left to force out one long belch of fire, this time targeting Gur. The tongue of flame seems to be more aimed at random, or perhaps whatever spirit infests the furnace can no longer sense its enemy's location. Gur easily steps aside, allowing the flames to spill onto the stone floor.
Lor-Sinn and Barret enter the next room amid the fiery chaos. Several moldy cots lay strewn about this room, while doors to smaller, more private sleeping cells hang askew to the west. Judging from the rest of this room's decor, this must have once been the prison's infirmary.
Gur will continue to keep the furnace's attention while our divinely inspired one continues his work. Gur makes a rude gesture at the evil face.
Lor-Sinn moves to check the sleeping cells, pushing debris out of her way with the end of her hammer.